


While The World Ends Around Us (Make Believe With Me)

by ghosttotheparty



Category: SKAM (Netherlands), WTFock | Skam (Belgium)
Genre: Brotherly Affection, Brotherly Love, COVID-19, Emotional Abuse, Falling In Love, Found Family, Idiots in Love, M/M, Mental Health Issues, adding to the skam theme of shitty parents, but if you think i need to add some anywhere pls let me know, existential dread basically, ill add more tags as it goes along, ill have trigger warnings at the beginnings of chapters, its a quarantine fic, jens has glasses, kinda sad tbh, lockdown - Freeform, lots of banter, mostly canon, season 4 never happened
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-20
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-18 09:08:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28864548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghosttotheparty/pseuds/ghosttotheparty
Summary: Sometimes Jens feels like his world is falling apart.And when he’s stuck in a silent flat with only his quiet little sister, his video games, and the internet, it feels like that’s all he has left. But after a text from the new kid, he thinks maybe there’s a chance his world can be built back up.Sometimes Lucas feels like his world is falling apart.And when he’s arrived in a new city but confined to a small apartment with his father, with nothing but bare walls and cardboard boxes, it feels like that’s all he has left. But when he takes a chance, he thinks maybe there’s more to his world than he thought.
Relationships: Jens Stoffels/Lucas van der Heijden
Comments: 4
Kudos: 28





	1. Surrounded when you close your eyes

_Waking up to start a fight_  
 _You promised we'd be alright_  
 _I don't know which way we gotta turn_  
 _Surrounded when you close your eyes_  
 _You'll never get the chance to cry_  
 _Never get the chance to even cry_  
_\- I Feel It Too // The Academic_

It’s too quiet now. 

Jens is used to bustling crowds, people pushing and shoving as they dance, flashing lights, loud music with pulsing bass, plastic cups full of alcohol and soda. He’s used to being around people, feeling as people bump into him, as drinks are spilt, trying to listen to what people say or shout over the music, only half understanding what they say, laughing and nodding and hoping it wasn’t a question. He’s used to taking breaks in the bathroom, standing over the sink and listening to the music, loud enough to sing along with even through the shut door, feeling like the neon lights that are on the dance floor are running through his veins, feeling electrified and exhausted. 

He’s used to hanging out with his friends every day, seeing them every day, hearing them every day. He’s used to being able to read their faces, being able to know exactly when they’re joking and when they’re serious, knowing exactly what he should say and what he shouldn’t say. He’s used to feeling their hands and shoulders against his, letting people hug him and kiss his cheeks in greetings, used to laughing and hearing other people’s laughter ring in his ears.

He’s used to hearing people talk, hearing people’s footsteps on concrete and gravel, hearing keys and coins rattle in people’s pockets, hearing long nails tapping phone screens and tables and mugs in coffee shops, hearing music coming from other people’s headphones and seeing them mouth the words to themselves, in their own little world. He’s used to hearing dogs barking and birds singing and cars and trucks and bicycles and skateboards rolling across pavement loudly. 

But now it’s quiet.

When he sits on the edge of his bed, unsure of how to cure his boredom, he hears almost nothing. He can hear himself breathe, can hear his own heartbeat. He can hear the leaking faucet in the kitchen, can hear Lotte roll over in bed, can hear a door from the flat under them shut. He can hear his throat move as he tries to swallow the silence, tries to absorb it, let it happen, but it surrounds him like a towel soaked in chloroform, like the dark itself is silence. 

And it’s too much. 

So he copes with headphones.

His music is always too loud, some music that’s harsh, waves crashing into rocky shores, some music that’s slow and chill, that he listens to as he smokes, sitting on his windowsill, the window open so the smoke drifts out in the wind as he watches it. Some music that’s just noise, just something to listen to even if he can’t understand the words, even if he can’t even hum along. Some music that he listened to when he was younger, music that reminds of when he was naive and when the biggest worry in his life was whether he’d be invited to a birthday party, whether he’d finish a science project on time. There are times where he just sits, on his windowsill, on his bed, his desk chair, on the floor, and he just _listens._

He supposes one of the reasons he needs noise loud is because when it’s quiet he hears _everything_ , from the faucet to the family downstairs to the plastic bag in his bin shifting under the weight of a dead pen. Everything is so loud. So it’s easier to just drown it all out. 

He’d like to sleep through it all, to sleep until he could see his friends and go out and be around people safely. He’d like to go to sleep and wake up to a regular, normal, ordinary world, where he doesn’t have to cover his face when he gets groceries, where Lotte can go to her friend’s house without Jens having to explain why she can’t, why she can’t even go a few blocks to see their dad. Why he hasn’t left the house at all, except to get a few bags of groceries, why their mom stays out _so_ late, _every_ night. 

“She’s working, Lotte,” he’d said. 

“But Sophie’s mom isn’t going to work.” Lotte had pouted and Jens sighed.

“We don’t have as much money as Sophie. Mom has to work so we can have food and stuff.”

“But she didn’t say good night.” 

Lotte is sad about this every night, that their mom leaves early in the morning, usually before Lotte is awake, and comes home late at night after Lotte is in bed. The only thing that really appeases her is Jens letting her help him make dinner. It also makes him happy, playing music and listening to her try to sing along, holding her hands and standing behind her as he shows her how to chop vegetables. Listening to pots clang together as they’re moved around in the cabinet of the small kitchen, hitting a spoon on the side of a pan before tossing it onto a cutting board, letting it clatter. At some point, Lotte would give up on the vegetables and watch Jens cook, maybe colouring or playing a game at the table as they talk. 

Jens is in control in the kitchen. He knows what noises are going to be made, knows how loud they’ll be, how long they’ll last. 

Maybe that’s why he likes it there. 

\---

It’s gotten harder to sleep. 

He stays up late, even later than he usually would, with his headphones on as he plays flashy, vibrant video games, as he listens to music and watches lights turn off in windows he can see from his room, as he looks at the sky. His head bobs as he listens to the music, his eyes glassy and unfocused as he watches the stars, as they fade from his vision until his eyes move. 

He’s sitting on his windowsill, a leg bent in front of him, with his hood up, his headphones over it. His eyes catch on a person on a bike, crossing the empty street outside his building, a light at the front of the bike glowing like the street lamps and the reflections of them on the wet pavement. He watches the person until they’ve disappeared from his view, and then he drops his head, feeling it thump against the worn wood of the windowsill. He hasn’t gone biking in weeks, hasn’t felt the wind in his face, running through his hair. He wishes he could do it, but can’t leave Lotte home alone. 

When he can go out again, he’ll go biking. Or skateboarding. By himself. He’ll go all through the city, won’t stop until he’s breathless and worn out, until he can finally lay in bed and just fall asleep. 

He lifts his head when he sees the hallway light come on through the crack under his door, and takes his headphones off, letting them hang around his neck. He can still hear the music blasting from them, and he waits, sitting there at his open window until he hears a shower turn on, and then takes them off completely, grabbing his phone and pausing his music. He steps down the hall quietly, sneaking past Lotte’s room so he doesn’t wake her up, and leaves the kitchen door open behind himself. He opens the fridge and pulls out a bowl covered in saran wrap, pasta that he made with Lotte’s minimal help, and microwaves it, wincing at the loud beeping and realising maybe he should have shut the door. So he does before he stirs the pasta and microwaves it again.

Just as he’s setting the now steaming bowl on the table, the door opens and his mother walks in, her hair dripping onto her pyjamas, and she pauses in the doorway, looking at him. She looks tired, more tired than Jens feels, and his heart hurts for her. 

She looks from him to the pasta and smiles, the lines around her eyes deepening. He steps back as she shuts the door behind herself, pulling himself up to sit on the counter. 

“Lotte is in bed?” she asks as she sits, picking up the fork and stirring. 

“Yeah,” Jens says quietly, his voice almost broken from disuse. “She made me swear to tell you to wake her up to hug and kiss her, though.” 

She smiles before taking a bite and nodding. Her mouth opens and she exhales and inhales quickly, trying to cool the pasta down while wincing and chewing, and Jens huffs out a laugh, shaking his head.

“I’ll do that,” she says when she finally swallows.

He can hear her chew, and cringes and grimaces when she isn’t looking, dropping the faces and smiling softly when she looks up at him. He holds himself up on the counter, his hands gripping the end of it at his sides, and his ankles are crossed and his legs hand down, one foot bouncing back and forth anxiously like he’s anticipating something. He doesn’t know what. 

“How was work?” he asks after a few silent minutes and she sighs. 

“It was work.” She swallows and looks at him, her face pained. “I have to take an extra shift this weekend.”

“What? Why?” 

His foot stops moving and his brow furrows. It feels like every shift she takes is extra these days. She’s hardly home, and he can tell how tired she is, how exhausted she is. And Lotte misses her. 

“Emma has to get tested. She has to stay home, it’s—” She drops her head into her hands and sighs before rubbing her face and looking at him. “It’s fine. It’ll be fine.”

Jens nods, taking a deep breath. 

“It’ll be fine,” he repeats. 

That’s all they can say, to deal with their inability to change anything, anything at all, to deal with their inability to make things easier or less complicated. It’ll be fine. 

He stays in the kitchen when she finishes eating, washes the bowl and fork, listening to the sponge scrub against the glass, to the soap suds wash down the drain. After the bowl and fork are on the drying rack, he leaves the water running, listening, letting it run over his hands. It’s too hot, but he doesn’t change the temperature, letting it sting his hands as he drops his head and closes his eyes. His head hurts. He’s been awake for too long, even longer than his mom, but he doesn’t mention it when she comes back in. He hasn’t been working or dealing with other people the way she has.

“I think she was still asleep when she hugged me.” He shuts the water off when she comes back in and turns around, grabbing a towel from the counter. His hands are slightly red, and it hurts to rub them with the rough towel, but when he tosses the towel aside and waves them in the air to dry them, it soothes them. “She barely even opened her eyes.” She sits back down on the chair, sideways, and looks at him. “Just wrapped her arms around me and laid on my lap.” 

Jens smiles, leaning the small of his back on the counter, looking at her. Her hair is still wet, but not dripping anymore. There are still dark marks under her eyes from makeup that didn’t wash off properly in her shower, and her red nail polish is chipped and neglected.

“We’re going to draw together tomorrow,” he says lightly. 

“ _You’re_ going to draw?” she says incredulously, raising an eyebrow.

“I’m going to try. Probably won’t be as good at Lotte’s.”

“Definitely won’t.” 

Jens scoffs, grinning as she smiles. It’s good to see her smile. 

“You’re so mean to me,” he says, trying to keep the smile there, but before she can retort a response, she yawns, covering her mouth. She sighs when her hand drops and looks at Jens, her shoulders dropping, and shakes her head. 

“It’s late.”

“It is.” 

“You need to be in bed.”

“ _You_ need to be in bed,” he says, stepping over and waving his hand for her to stand. She does, looking like her head and shoulders are heavy, her shoulders sagging as she looks at him. He wraps his arms around her and she hugs him back, sighing as he buries his face in her neck. He listens to her breathe, inhales the scent of her soap, feels her wet hair on his forehead, and holds her tight for a few seconds. It’s only a few seconds he allows himself. 

“Go to bed,” he says, letting go and stepping back, placing his hands on her shoulder and gently turns her so she’s headed to the door. “I’ll get your breakfast ready and everything.” 

She sends him a grateful look over her shoulder, reaching up and squeezing his hand as she steps out into the hall. 

“I love you,” she says, leaning back through the door again as Jens pushes her out. 

“I know, I love you too.” 

When she’s gone to bed, he lets himself collapse. He falls into the chair she sat on, lets his head fall to his hands, taking a deep, shaky breath. He feels his eyes sting and burn, but he doesn’t know why, and presses the heel of his eyes, pushing down until colours shoot between his eyes and his eyelids, like faint fireworks or blossoms. When he opens his eyes it’s a second before he can see anything, and he just sits there. Waiting. Like always. Waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting. 

He doesn’t know how long he sits there, not moving, his eyes unfocused on the tap. Or maybe it’s the sink. It’s in that general direction. Maybe it’s a few seconds, or a few minutes, or just one, or an hour, or maybe four. When he finally stands, he does so heavily, startled back into his body by a sound that doesn’t exist in the real world, and he preps the coffee, gets out the container of pancakes he and Lotte made that morning, setting a few into a smaller container before putting them both in the fridge. He rubs his face when it shuts, standing and facing it without moving. 

He knows he should go to sleep. 

But somehow the idea of it, of lying in bed in silence is scary. 

So he puts his headphones back on before he lays down in the dark, curling onto his side with the blankets pulled tightly around him, clutched the end of them in his fists under his chin as he shuts his eyes. He doesn’t know how long it is before he’s asleep. The music blurs and fades in and out, and he misses entire songs, just catching the very end, mouthing words to himself until he can’t make his lips move anymore. 

Waiting.


	2. I just wanna go where I can get some space

_Mind my simple song, this ain't gonna work_  
 _Mind my wicked words and tipsy topsy smirk_  
 _I can't take this place, I can't take this place_  
 _I just wanna go where I can get some space_  
_\- Gooey // Glass Animals_

Lucas doesn't know what to do with himself. 

He still hasn’t worked up the energy or motivation to unpack beyond what he needs, even after weeks of being in Antwerp. He’s barely even worked up the motivation to get out of bed. 

He’s barely left the apartment, even after his two-week quarantine mostly in his room (during which he unpacked a few shirts and the white comforter that’s strewn across his mattress, which lies on the floor next to a window), despite his father’s demands that he get groceries. That was their first fight after Lucas moved in. Words had been thrown around the room. Lucas wishes he had thrown other things too. Anything that might just convince his father to send him back to Utrecht. Maybe some plates. Glass. But he figures that would probably just get his father’s belt lashed at him. 

When his father finally surrendered to letting Lucas stay home, he told him to unpack. And then told him that he isn’t allowed to put anything on the walls. Not even with tape. 

So Lucas has boxes and boxes filled with things he can do nothing with but look at. Photos he’d printed before moving specifically to put on his walls, that he now just thumbs through longingly, gazing at Kes and Jayden and Isa and Liv. He even has photos of Noah, whom he’d gotten closer to in the days before the move. Noah had given him a goodbye gift of a set of pencils accompanied with a wink and a hug later on that night. He’d told Lucas that he’d caught him doodling on a napkin at a get-together a few weeks before. 

“You’re pretty good,” Noah had told him. “You could do it seriously.”

“I do,” Lucas had responded. “I just don’t show anyone.” 

“Well maybe if you show more people, more people will get you new supplies.” 

Lucas had just made a face and allowed him a “Maybe.” 

The pencils are in the same box as all his sketchbooks, the ones he’s started filling with drawings and doodles, and the ones that are completely blank, bought before he moved just in case he wouldn’t be able to buy any after arriving. In the box, he also has watercolours and paints and an abundance of brushes, along with palette knives he’s never used. The box is on the floor next to his door. He moved it from the top of a stack of boxes after needing to find his lined notebooks for school. And his clothes. 

Anyway. 

The photos. 

He remembers when they were taken. He heard a lot of laughter that day. He had taken some before Kes had snatched his phone (freshly cleared of storage just for the occasion), and taken more than Lucas had bothered to count. Pictures of Lucas and Isa, Isa by herself, Lucas and Liv, Lucas and Janna, Lucas and Engel, Lucas and Noah, Lucas and Jayden, Lucas and Ralph, before he had begun taking photos of them not posing. Photos of them eating, laughing, talking, hugging. Them all existing. 

They were beautiful.

Lucas had told Kes he could be a photographer. Kes had said he’s never thought about it. 

Then Lucas had taken his phone back and taken photos of Kes and the others until his storage ran out.

He printed each and every one of them.

He flips through them whenever he can, grinning and rolling his eyes at the photos of Jayden making a face and the photo of Noah flipping his middle finger to Kes with a flat face, smiling fondly at the photo of Liv and Isa hugging, Isa’s cheek squished against Liv’s, gazing longingly at the ones of them all together. 

He sighs. 

He supposes he feels lonely now. Of course, he’s still been talking to them, chatting and giggling at the stupid videos and memes they send, but he hasn’t seen or _touched_ them since he moved. He thinks he misses that the most. Hugging, shaking hands, receiving cheek kisses from Isa and Janna and Ralph. Sitting on a sofa and immediately feeling someone’s leg press against his, or lay over his lap. Feeling someone’s head rest on his shoulder, someone’s fingers mess with his curls. He misses when Isa would stand too close while talking to him, close enough for him to wrap his arms around her waist and hold her close while she speaks. He misses when Kes’s thigh would press against his as they sat side-by-side, and when Jayden would greet him with a fist to his shoulder, or Ralph with a pinch on his cheek. 

He hasn’t touched anyone since moving. He doesn’t think the accidental brushes against his father’s shoulders as he storms past count. 

He misses it, more so sometimes than others. Sometimes he misses it so badly he aches, pulling a pillow to his chest, or wrapping his arms around his legs, trying to feel some sort of contact, some sort of pressure. Sometimes he wonders if he’ll forget what it feels like to touch other people. He, _no one_ for that matter, doesn’t know when it’ll be completely safe to touch others, to hang out with them without covering their faces, to greet them with kisses on the cheek, the way Janna likes to. He doesn’t even know if he’ll have anyone he’ll _want_ to do those things with. 

He doubts he’ll find friends like Kes and Jayden, kind of doubts he’ll find friends full stop. 

It’s not like he’s going to have the opportunity to get to know anyone at school, as they’re not even _at school_. And it’s not like he really wants to make friends, anyway. He’ll just leave Antwerp after high school, just have to say goodbye. The first chance he gets, he’s leaving on a train back to Utrecht. He’ll figure his life out from there. 

But for now, this is what he has: a mattress on the floor. Blank walls. Towering cardboard boxes. A stash of cigarettes and weed hidden between his mattress and the wall. His skateboard propped up against a stack of boxes. His laptop sitting on top of a box, ready for when he finally starts school, which he’s dreading. 

Just more things to do. 

More chores. 

Everything feels like a chore lately. If he thinks about it, everything’s felt like a chore for a while now. Instead of a to-do list, he has a _fuck, I still have to do that_ list. It takes energy to roll out of bed. It takes commitment to wake up. 

It’s gotten worse since he got to Antwerp. Maybe, he thinks, because it’s so much work to exist in the same place as his father, who blames him for every single thing the universe throws his way. But he also thinks it’s because there’s no one here to shake him out of it. Back home, he would get texts and texts from his friends, telling him to meet them at the skatepark, at a cafe, at some party. Giving him things to do. 

Here, he still gets texts. 

He answers them laying in bed. 

He doesn’t know how to explain it. 

It feels like something is missing. Like there’s an emptiness in him. It’s easier to ignore when he’s around other people, when he’s listening to loud music and talking and laughing, or scrolling endlessly on social media. It’s easier to pretend there’s something there, on that empty shelf in his chest. 

Sometimes it’s sadness, he thinks. Especially since he moved. Sadness from missing home, missing people. But most of the time it’s just… nothing. 

And he can’t really spend time with his friends, so he scrolls. Or draws or paints. But he hasn’t been making much art beyond sketches lately. 

Part of him hopes he might make some friends when school starts, at least some people to chat with, or hang out with when it’s safe. But if he’s completely honest with himself, he’s not expecting to. He doesn’t even remember how he became friends with most of the friends he has. Kes and Isa had, for lack of a better word, adopted him when they were younger, had taken him under their wings and shown him the ropes of existence. 

Which feel like they’re unravelling. 

Lucas rolls over in bed, looking up at his laptop on the boxes, sighing. This is his life now. Boxes and the internet. The sound of his father tripping down the hall, grumbling to himself because Lucas isn’t there to scold. (This is just about the only instance Lucas can think of when he hears his father’s voice. The amount of words they’ve exchanged outside of their fights could usually be counted on two hands.) He’ll finally hear some voices that don’t belong to his father next week when he goes to class. 

The thought of going back to school, even through video calls and online assignments, makes him itch. He’s picked his lips red and raw in the past few days, without Isa to swat his hands away from his face before he can start tasting blood. When he lets his mind wander, his leg starts to bounce. His mom would set her hand on his knee, making it stop, and chuckle while telling him he’s making her seasick. He doesn’t even realise he’s doing it. 

He already has lots of emails from teachers; he checks every time he uses his laptop, but he hasn’t responded to any of them. They all sound the same.

_This is new to all of us_   
_The school year looks very different this year_   
_Thank you all for doing your best!_   
_These are uncertain times_   
_This digital landscape is difficult to navigate_   
_This is a unique challenge_   
_This could be an opportunity for you_

All monotonous, inspiring voices of people waiting. 

He doesn’t know how the hell he’s supposed to respond to any of them. 

He tries to think that is really is something everyone is experiencing. That _This is new to all of us_ and _We’re all doing what we can_ , but he feels like he’s in it alone. He knows even Kes and the others aren’t seeing each other in person, aren’t hugging and hanging out the way Lucas longs to, but at least they’re at home. Lucas is stuck in a box, and it feels like it’s closing around him. 

He sighs again, shutting his eyes. It’s not quite dark yet, but he feels exhausted, even after doing nothing all day. He’ll probably wake up in a few hours anyway. And he’ll open his blinds, looking out at the city, just half-alive, just like him.


	3. I'm to making shift for shaping a life

_Sorry 'bout my head, it's in space_   
_I'm still learning how to pace_   
_I'm too atheist to pray for my life_   
_About my head, it's on straight_   
_But I'm all over the place_   
_I'm to making shift for shaping a life_   
_\- First Aid // Gus Dapperton_

It’s like it’s the same day all over again when he wakes up. The same gentle whir of his fan, the same blankets covering his body, the same cracks in the ceiling above his bed that look like shitty, knockoff constellations. The same cup next to his bed, half-empty, as always, the same guitar, in the same position, in the same spot in its stand against next to his bed. The same four walls, staring down at him as if in judgement. 

What’s different today is the quiet patter of rain, tapping against his window, asking to be invited in. 

It’s a welcome noise. 

Peaceful. 

He almost wants to open the window, let the rain in, let it wash over him, let it wet his hair and get caught in his eyelashes, let it run down his face like tears. But he doesn’t. He sits up, looking across the small room, and watches drops race down the glass. It’s a little bit dark out, the sun blocked by clouds, and he expects to see bright reflections of light in the drops, but he doesn’t. He almost wants to close his eyes, lay his head against the wall behind him, and just listen to the rain, but he doesn’t get the chance. 

There’s a knock at his door, and he calls out a gentle “Come in,” as he tugs at the blanket, moving it on the bed so the end of it is pulled up in front of him.

The door opens and Lotte walks in, wearing pink pyjamas, cradling a stuffed bear to her chest, and the door swings shut behind her, thudding loudly, but she doesn’t react to it. She just looks at Jens, holding her bear, the bottom of her oversized pyjama pants pooled around her feet, the ends of her sleeves bunched around her hands. She looks smaller than she usually does. Her eyes are soft, gazing at him across the room, until he cocks his head, beckoning. 

As she climbs onto the bed, he pulls the blanket off his lap, shifting and lifting his back from the wall enough to swing the blanket around his shoulders, gripping in his fists and wrapping it around himself as Lotte crawls into his lap, her back against his chest. He wraps his arms around her, resting his head on her shoulder and she lays her head on his, sighing. 

Jens moves down on the wall slightly, tightening his arms around her, and she turns so she’s sitting sideways in his lap, laying against his chest. Her arms are wrapped around the bear, her chin nestled on the top of its fuzzy head, and Jens runs one of his hands through her hair, gently combing through tangles and knots. 

“I miss Daddy,” she says softly after a few quiet minutes. 

Jens sighs, removing his hand from her hair, and leans down, kissing the top of her head gently. He sees that her eyes are closed, and a part of him hopes she’ll fall asleep like this. 

“Me too.” 

“Why can’t we go see him?” Her voice is small, like she’s hoping she’ll get a different answer than she got last time. 

“People are getting sick, Lotte.” He runs a hand over her hair and lays his head against the wall, his eyes on the window. “We have to stay home so fewer people get sick.”

“I haven’t gotten sick.” 

“I know. But some people get sick easier than other people. We just have to try to keep them safe.” 

He watches the rain race down the window, listens to it against the glass and the roof, and he listens to Lotte breathing, her soft, quiet breaths that form a rhythm that he follows without thinking about it. 

“When will we see him again?” 

Jens doesn’t know how to answer. He has no idea how long this will last, this lockdown, this confinement. Their father is only a few blocks away, is only a few streets down from where they are right now, probably sitting at his dining table with his laptop in front of him, working. Maybe he’s wondering the same thing. 

“Eventually.”

She does fall asleep on him, still clutching her bear, but one of Jens’s hands ends up between the soft fuzz and her small hand, her fingers wrapped around one of his. He feels her grip loosen when she drifts off, but he doesn’t move. 

\--- 

He’s always known that the apartment is small. 

The kitchen is tiny, a counter around a small room, old cabinets that shut too loudly, a leaky faucet that drips into a metal sink, a circular dinner table pushed into the corner of the room. (Lotte likes to crawl under it and sit in the corner.) The door opens directly into the thin hallway, and just a step down it is the living room, with a small sofa and coffee table, usually covered in scattered paper and markers, pillows strewn across the floor. (When Jens hangs out with Lotte, he usually sits or kneels on one next to her.) All three bedrooms are the same size. 

Jens often feels like he’s trapped in a box lined with fairy lights. He has to squeeze between his bed and the closet in the wall to slide it open. He has to either slip between his bed and dresser or climb over his bed to make it to his window. He only has to take two steps to get from the door to bed. He’s always wanted a desk, but there’s never been enough space anywhere in the apartment to put one. (And barely enough spare money to get one.) Lotte’s room feels bigger, but only because her bed is smaller. She has space to play on the floor, and when Jens sits with her, his back against the wall, there’s just enough space to stretch his legs out in front of him. 

This is where they sit while they draw together. Or rather, while Lotte draws and Jens makes a half attempt before giving up.

It’s also where Lotte falls asleep a few days later, as she draws and Jens scrolls on his phone. It’s early in the morning, and Jens suspects Lotte stayed up until their mom got home last night, smiling softly and shaking his head as her eyes flutter shut for a second before she opens them, blinking blearily and picking up the pencil that had slipped from her fingers. 

“Tired?” he asks, and she shakes her head, contradicting herself by yawning. 

“No,” she says lightly, and leans down to the floor, looking closer at her drawing. Jens looks at his phone, checking the time.

“Do you want to take a nap?” Jens asks after a second. He has a few minutes before he needs to log in to a class. It’s one of the only teachers that require him to join the video call. And his least favourite, because she also requires them to leave their cameras on. 

Lotte pauses, looking up at him without lifting her head. 

“Yes,” she says finally, and drops the pencil, turning on the floor and climbing up onto the bed. Jens picks up the sketchbook and pencils as she snuggles into her pillow, clutching a stuffed animal to her chest and looking up at him. Her curtains are already pulled shut, the soft sunlight shining through them and washing the small room in pink. He pulls up her blankets and tucks them under her chin, making her giggle. 

“I have a class,” he says. “You know when to get me right?” 

“Only if I’m hurt or if I’m scared.” 

“Good girl,” he says, and bends down, brushing her hair out of her face and kissing her forehead lightly. 

She already looks asleep by the time he shuts her door behind himself. 

It’s even quieter without the sound of her pencil on paper. 

Jens closes his bedroom door with a quiet _click_ , and finds his laptop under his bedside table before tossing it lightly onto his bed and hopping up, bouncing as he lands criss-cross. 

He also turns the camera off before he joins the class’ video chat but leaves it on at the last second, shooting a look at himself and ruffling his hair, huffing. 

“And there’s Jens!” Ms Peeters says a second after he joins, and he drops his phone, looking up and smiling lightly. She’s one of his favourite teachers. She’s one of everyone’s teachers, honestly, always enthusiastic and considerate. She could be their grandma. “So nice to see your lovely smile, good morning. And Mila, hello!”

“Victor, did you cut your hair?” she asks as more people flood the meeting, looking delighted. There’s a pause as Victor turns on his microphone. 

“Uh, yeah, my mom did it.” He doesn’t look happy, and Jens stifles a laugh, seeing how messy and short his hair is now, a contrast from the shoulder-length locks Jens is used to. 

“Well you look very handsome,” Ms Peeters says in response and Victor smiles. “We’re waiting on one more student…” She tilts her head up and looks closely at the screen in front of her through her glasses. “But he might still be figuring it out, we can go on and start without him. Who wants to quickly go through what we did last class?” 

It’s quiet and Jens pulls his notebook closer, looking at his messy notes.

“Uhm…” a girl’s voice says finally, her audio garbled, sounding like she’s standing down a long tunnel. “We were going over different forms of poems and we stopped when we finished talking about sonnets.” 

“Yes, and?” 

“And you asked us to find a sonnet online and summarise what it’s about and the rhyme scheme, and to write a haiku.” 

“That’s right,” Ms Peeters says. “And if I remember correctly, almost all of you turned it in. If you didn’t, you know who you are, please get it in by this afternoon.” (Jens turned it in late last night. Almost everything he turns in now gets turned in late at night.) “So, if you looked at today’s lesson plan…” 

As she speaks, Jens’s screen rearranges itself, squares of students jumping across the screen as another square appears. The student’s camera isn’t on, so all Jens sees is an L in a circle. 

“...you would have seen that we’re— Oh! There he is!” Ms Peeters exclaims. “Lucas, if you wouldn’t mind turning your camera on?” 

There’s a pause, and then Lucas appears. 

He’s looking up past the camera, watching something behind his screen, before he looks back, smiling awkwardly and waving a hand. He has curls falling in his face, and Jens smiles without noticing. 

“Lucas, introduce yourself!” Ms Peeters says. 

He mouths _Uhm…_ and then leans forward slightly, clicking the microphone. 

“My name is Lucas…” he says, an awkward smile still on his face, and Jens scoffs in sympathy. “I’m seventeen.” He pauses, looking hesitant. “I’m an artist.” 

It’s not obvious, Jens thinks, looking at the wall behind Lucas. It’s completely blank, except for the stripes shadows of blinds. Not what Jens would expect from an artist. But, he supposes, he doesn’t know what kind of art Lucas means.

“I moved here from Utrecht.” 

“Well, we’re very happy to have you here, Lucas. How was the move? What with everything that’s going on right now?”

“Uh, it wasn’t great.” 

Ms Peeters laughs sympathetically. 

“No, but it wasn’t awful,” he continues, shifting in his seat. His laptop moves as he does and Jens wonders if he’s sitting on his bed like Jens is. “The train was mostly empty and the mask wasn’t too bad. It was mostly just… moving all my stuff in here that was the hassle.” He glances up again as he says this. 

“Well, lucky for you, I don’t give that much homework,” Ms Peeters says. “Most everything I’ll be assigning can be done in maybe fifteen minutes or less if you focus. But I am assigning a project soon.” 

Jens sees the students groan and throw their heads back, and he laughs. 

“Not today!” Ms Peeters says, making an offended expression. “Calm down. I’ll be assigning it later. And it’s not poetry, I’m sure you’ll all be happy about that.” 

Lucas is laughing, Jens notices when he looks away from Ms Peeters. His eyes squint under his smile, and when he pushes his curls out of his face, Jens can see the slightest hint of freckles scattered across his cheeks. Jens, unfortunately, has a hard time looking away from Lucas’s little square. Ms Peeters presents her screen in the meeting so the class can take notes, and Jens’s notes are, as Moyo would probably put it, half-assed. He ends up paying more attention to the way Lucas’s brow furrows as he writes and the way his eyes move across the screen as he reads. 

He wonders if his voice sounds different in person.


	4. Two sides in a storm seek control by contradiction

_I came to the place that I try to find division_   
_Two sides in a storm seek control by contradiction_   
_I want to feel alive, I want to feel alive_   
_I want to feel alive, I want to feel alive_   
_\- I Want to Feel Alive // The Lighthouse and the Whaler_

Lucas throws himself onto his mattress, the slam from his door echoing in his head. He buries his face in his pillow, swallowing with a dry throat, and wills himself not to cry in case his dad comes in to yell some more. Lucas can feel himself shaking, trembling, his unsteady breath muffled the pillow, his fingers clutching at the thin fabric of the pillowcase. 

He blocks out the sunlight, wishing for the sky to darken, and he loses track of time, laying there and waiting. He wishes he could fall asleep, but even in the deafening silence of his room, even with his eyes shut tight and the pillow blocking any kind of light, he can’t. His heart is still pounding, and he can hear it, thudding like rhythmic thunder in his ears. 

He can hear his door swing open even with the ends of the pillow held over his ears and he turns his head without really lifting it, just barely able to see over his shoulder. It’s still mostly light. 

“I’m going out,” his dad says in a gruff voice, and instead of responding, Lucas turns his head back, closing his eyes. His dad clicks his tongue and huffs, and Lucas can imagine him rolling his eyes that way he does, with no playfulness or simple annoyance in them, just anger. Lucas half expects to hear a sharp “Don’t ignore me,” but a few seconds later, the front door shuts loudly. Lucas groans into the pillow forcefully, his body tensing with withheld anger. 

After a second, he gets up quickly, stumbling as he lifts himself off his mattress, and leaves his room, going through the short hallway to every door his dad left open and slamming them, as hard as he wants, as hard as he can, his brows pulled together with concentration and fury. He mumbles quietly.

“Fuck you.” 

_Slam._

“Fuck you.” 

_Slam._

“Fuck you.” 

_Slam._

At first, it’s to his dad, but as the kitchen door shuts with a bang, a part of him thinks it’s to the apartment. It’s like he’s another _thing_ , left at the bottom of a cardboard moving box, forgotten about. When he gets back to his room, after he swings the door shut with as much strength as his arm can manage, he realises he’s crying. 

Tears are streaming down his face, and he turns away from the door, wiping his face harshly enough that the fabric of his sleeves makes his cheeks sting.

“It’s fine,” he says to himself quietly, crossing the small room to open his window before picking his laptop up from a box and tossing it onto his mattress. He sniffs, wiping his eyes again, and sighs as he falls onto his bed. He feels calmer, but he can still feel his heart beating in his chest like it’s right up against his skin. He takes another shaky breath as he turns his laptop on, and then as it loads, he reaches behind himself, sliding a hand between the mattress and the wall until he finds the packet of weed. 

After lighting a pre-rolled joint and carefully hiding the packet in its home, Lucas opens his emails, leaning back against the wall after propping a pillow up. There are a few notifications about new math assignments (Lucas ignores them, rolling his eyes), and an email from Ms Peeters, he opens it, inhaling the smoke and holding it in his lungs until he exhales. 

_Hi, Lucas!_

Lucas would smile if he had it in him. Ms Peeters is the only teacher thus far to appear so friendly, actually talking to him rather than acknowledging his presence for the sake of attendance and then moving on with the lesson after he joins the meeting. Not to mention that when she addressed him, it was _Lucas_ and not _Mr Van der Heijden_. He hates that. That’s what people call his dad. 

_I moved around a bit when I was your age and I know how hard it can be, but I can’t imagine it at a time like this. I know it’s hard making friends in new places and it must be even harder when you can’t see them face to face, but there are some really good kids at this school and in your class. If you want to try and get to know some people, here are the emails to everyone in our class! (And if you ever have any questions or need any help, feel free to let me know) ☺_  
 _\- Ms Peeters_

Lucas takes another drag of the joint, letting the smoke fog his brain, and he scrolls, finding a list of names and email addresses. 

_Liam Janssens_  
 _Luciana Maes_  
 _Elena Lambert_  
 _Arthur van Damme_  
 _Louis Mathieu_

Lucas rests his head against the wall, watching the names scroll by, remembering a few from class, from seeing the names under the student’ boxes. Olivia de Coster had had a tye-dyed tapestry behind her head. Mohamed Abadi wore thick glasses and his room was dim. Hoa van der Walle had a cat. 

He stays like this, smoking and scrolling, reading every name, remembering every student, until-

_Jens Stoffels_

Lucas stops, taking the joint out of his mouth and exhaling the smoke, reading the name again. A face flashes in his head, a face he saw in class. A pretty face. 

The corner of Lucas’s mouth quirks like he’s about to smile, and he leans back, looking from the name to the wall in front of him. He remembers him clearest, because it took a little while to stop looking at him. He, _Jens_ , tapped a pencil on his face while he looked at the screen, while he watched Ms Peeters talk, while he read the slide she’d presented. He’d smiled while Lucas chatted with Ms Peeters, a soft smile. There were fairy lights on the wall above his head. 

Without thinking, Lucas is copying Jens’s email address and pasting it in a new draft. But he stops when it’s time to actually write it, taking a slow drag off the joint as he stares at the blinking curser. 

He bites his lip as he exhales the smoke through his nose, wiggling the joint back and forth between his fingers as his brow furrows. He doesn’t really know how to talk to someone other than Kes and them. He hasn’t had to in a while.

He lets his head fall back, hitting the wall lightly, and lifts the joint to his mouth, taking in a deep breath before holding it, lifting his head, the joint dangling from his mouth as he types. 

He hits send without letting himself read over it again, pushing the laptop away and turning to look out the window. He raised the blinds earlier today. (He hates the blinds. He wishes he could have curtains. If he could, he would get yellow, a soft summer-y, morning yellow. Or he’d buy several different colours and change them every once in a while.) The sun is starting to go down and the sky has turned pink, the clouds wispy, floating over the buildings. It’s quiet. 

A breeze comes in from the window, blowing smoke back into his face, and he shuts his eyes.

When he opens them the sky looks like it’s glowing, and he’s colder, his room having darkened, the wind having sped up. He shuts his window before relighting the burnt down joint, taking in a breath as he opens his laptop again, ready to open Netflix, or anything that will make some noise in his nearly echoing room. He pauses, his email inbox still open, and his heart stutters in his chest when he sees Jens’s name.

_Jens Stoffels_

He almost whispers it to himself, looking over the name again. He’d almost forgotten he’d emailed him, and certainly wasn’t expecting a response so soon. He opens it hesitantly, exhaling smoke in front of himself. 

_hi! youre rly lucky i was doing homework i probably wouldnt have seen this until like next week_   
_but if you text me ill probably respond a lot sooner :)_

Under the message is a phone number, and Lucas almost drops the joint in his rush to grab his phone, sticking it between his lips as he leans across the mattress to where the phone is plugged into the wall. He scrambles to add a new contact (just _Jens_ ; he might change it later. Most of his contacts have emojis or nicknames, like _Kes💩_ and _Ies( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)_ ), but he freezes when his fingers are over the keyboard, ready to text him, just like when he was sending the email. He sucks in a drag from the forgotten joint, reaching up and taking it from his mouth, looking at the emails. Jens seems nice enough. Friendly. And the way he smiled during class…

Lucas places the joint between his lips again as he types. 

_hey this is lucas :)_


End file.
